By Charmaine Ndlela
South Africa will expand the way it measures the performance of schools and education districts, placing greater emphasis on learner retention, Bachelor passes, distinctions and participation in key subjects rather than relying primarily on the matric pass rate, Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube said on Friday.
Speaking in Johannesburg ahead of the 12th National Education Excellence Awards ceremony, Gwarube said the expanded approach would be applied from the 2026 National Senior Certificate results onwards.
The assessment will also consider support for learners with disabilities and progress in foundational learning, as the Department of Basic Education shifts its focus towards the quality and sustainability of educational outcomes.
“The matric pass rate remains important, but the future of our country will not be determined only by how many learners pass matric,” Gwarube said.
Her remarks came before the department was due to honour South Africa’s top-performing and most-improved education districts, schools and officials at the awards ceremony, held under the theme “Strong Foundations, Strong Futures”.
“These awards recognise people who have gone beyond meeting targets. They recognise leadership that has strengthened schools, supported teachers and changed the educational prospects of learners,” she said.
The minister said every finalist represented years of disciplined work that often went unnoticed and pointed to the performance of the Class of 2025 as evidence of progress across the education system.
South Africa recorded a national matric pass rate of 88% in 2025, the highest since the advent of democracy.
“For the first time in our democratic history, all 75 education districts achieved a matric pass rate above 80%,” Gwarube said.
“It shows that improvement is no longer limited to a small number of historically strong districts.”
However, she cautioned that pass rates could not be viewed in isolation when assessing the quality of education.
Learner retention, infrastructure, teacher support, performance in individual subjects and persistent inequalities remained significant challenges requiring sustained intervention, she said.
Gwarube said the department was consequently placing greater emphasis on strengthening early learning, particularly literacy and numeracy in the foundational grades.
More than 13,300 Early Childhood Development centres had been registered, exceeding the department’s 2025 target and expanding access to early learning services for more than 1.2 million children.
The department is also implementing compulsory Grade R and plans to train 10,000 Foundation Phase teachers in literacy and numeracy during 2026.
Other interventions include strengthening structured learning programmes, expanding literacy support in African languages and improving the delivery of quality learning and teaching support materials.
Gwarube said education districts would be central to implementing the reforms, with district directors responsible for translating national policies into improved teaching and learning in classrooms.
“The awards we present tonight recognise excellence. But they also remind us that excellence carries responsibility,” she said.
She encouraged successful districts and schools to share their methods and lessons with institutions facing greater challenges, arguing that improvements should be extended across the education system rather than remaining concentrated in high-performing areas.
The department also unveiled a partnership with Canva for Education that will give teachers and learners free access to the platform’s educational tools.
Canva Africa Lead Bianca Sibiya said the partnership would provide educators with digital resources, practical training and continued support.
“We are partnering specifically to invest in teachers and students by providing free access to powerful teaching tools, practical training and ongoing support to prepare classrooms for the future,” she said.
Sibiya said visual and interactive learning could help learners understand and retain information, while digital tools could reduce the amount of time teachers spend preparing lessons and educational materials.
The platform allows educators to create presentations, lesson plans, worksheets, videos, assessments and collaborative classroom activities.
It also includes offline functionality intended to support schools in communities where internet connectivity is limited.
Sibiya said Canva’s artificial intelligence features were designed to support educators rather than replace their role in the classroom.
“AI should never replace teachers. Canva’s AI tools help teachers save time on lesson preparation and resource creation so they can spend more time with learners,” she said.
Learners could also use the platform to create digital portfolios, develop creative and communication skills and prepare for further study, entrepreneurship and employment in the digital economy, she added.
According to Canva, its platform is used each month by more than 140 million teachers and students across 700,000 schools in more than 190 countries.
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